Feb 18 - Brighton, - A socialist programme to defend education

The International Students for Social Equality is holding a series of meetings in the UK to advance a socialist programme in opposition to the cuts in higher and further education announced by the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The government has announced education cuts totalling £900 million. This is only the tip of an iceberg. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the cuts may reach £2.5 billion. Leaders of the Russell Group of 20 leading universities have stated that at least 30 universities could disappear and the rest faced possible meltdown. The cuts would send at least 14,000 academics to the dole queue.

A record 477,277 students took up a university place this autumn, a 5.6 percent rise on last year. But an additional 139,520 students failed to win a place. Savage cuts are already being implemented at universities and colleges throughout the UK. The government has initiated a review that is expected to recommend that annual tuition fees be allowed to increase to between £5,000 and £7,000 a year from the current level of £3,225.

Education cuts are part of a wider, systematic assault on all the social programmes and gains won by the working class over decades designed to make them pay for the raging economic crisis and the multibillion bailouts handed over to the bankers and the super-rich.

They can only be opposed through a mass political mobilisation of students in alliance with broader sections of working people. Students wishing to discuss this should attend ISSE meetings on your campus.

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